Filmmaking 101 is a series of articles I’m writing for Life As A Human. Please check out the full article over there.

In my last article I mentioned that I wrote the short film version of Curtains for an application to a film program. That program is called Film 5, and is put on through AFCOOP, a film co-operative in Halifax, NS. They offer all sorts of great training and resources to new and established filmmakers in Nova Scotia. Film 5 is for emerging filmmakers. You apply with a script and a small team (writer/director/producer), and they hold your hand through making your film.

This sounded great. I put out a call to my Facebook friends for team members. I found a friend who works as an editor, and had a friend of a friend recommended. We three met, all got along, and all liked the project. We put together an application that I thought was a shoe-in.

Filmmaking 101 is a series of articles I’m writing for Life As A Human. Please check out the full article over there.

Creating something — whether it be art, music, literature, a new company, a product that you want to sell on the interweb to make your million — happens in two distinct phases. In the first you, and your idea, exist in a pocket universe* that is completely separate from our known reality. It’s your baby, your own, your precious, and you must protect it as it cannot possibly survive out in the cold on its own. Perhaps you invite a few trusted allies to visit your pocket universe, and introduce your idea to them, and try not to feel like you’re going to the bathroom naked in the middle of your high school English class (I’m not the only one with that recurring nightmare. Right?) — in other words, totally exposed and absolutely ridiculous. But for the most part it is kept in solitary confinement while you nurse it into being.

My, that’s a gooey metaphor. Did I get any on you? So sorry for the mess.

Filmmaking 101 is a series of articles I’m writing for Life As A Human. Please check out the full article over there.

I’m making a movie.

That’s something I never thought I’d say! Who am I to make a movie? Who do I think I am? I never attended film school. I don’t know anyone famous. I don’t have any money and I don’t really have any idea what I’m doing.

I think that’s why this could work.

It’s sort of what I do. I see something that I think sounds cool and just dive right in, without really thinking. Maybe that seems reckless. But in my experience if I think too much about something then I come up with a whole list of reasons why I shouldn’t do it and talk myself out of it… [Read More]

When the Day Breaks (9 min 40 s) by Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis, came out in 1999. After witnessing a horrible accident, Ruby struggles to find connections to the world around her.

All of the characters in When the Day Breaks are animals, including a stuffy old rooster (complete with hat that accommodates his comb), a timid rabbit as the sales clerk, and a bulldog police officer, just to name a few. The film has a scratchy, newsreel quality to the animation, which was achieved by painting and drawing on photocopies…[…read more]

Mike Duff was a Canadian motorcycle racer in the 60s. He shattered his hip in Japan and had major surgery to repair it. His recovery and return to racing was captured by Robin Spry in the 1966 documentary Ride for Your Life (9 min 40 s).

This film has some incredible footage of motorcycle races, and crashes, in the 60s. It also has some images from Duff’s hip operation, so if you’re not a fan of watching surgeries you may want to distract yourself for a few seconds. But it doesn’t last long, I promise…[…read more]